Load-shedding unlikely during summer 2017: Minister

Bhubaneswar:The Odisha government today virtually ruled out possibility of load-shedding during the ensuing summer as most of the hydel project reservoirs have enough water due to a normal monsoon.

This was stated by Energy Minister Pranab Prakash Das in the Assembly while replying to a written question.

“As per the data received from the Grid Corporation of Odisha (Gridco), most of the water reservoirs have adequate water due to normal rainfall during this monsoon. Therefore, there should be no load shedding both in urban and rural areas of the state in summer 2017,” Das said.

Stating that a contigency plan has been put in place ahead of the summer in order to avoid powercut in both urban and rural areas, the minister said “the additional power reuirement during the summer will be met by procuring electricity from different sources.”

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The minister said that the Gridco had supplied Odisha’s additional power to some other states in the month of January, February and March through power banking mode. “We have made arrangement to get about 100 MW of power from other states through power banking mode in the month of April, May and June when state requirement is more due to summer,” the minister said.Das said the electricity to be procured through power banking system would help meeting emergencies, if any during the summer.

The minister also informed the House that power distribution companies had been asked to store required number of transformers and other equipments ready before the summer season.

Replying to another question, the minister said the state was expecting availability of about 4,543 MW of additional power from capacity addition programmes being taken up between 2016-17 to 2019-20.